


A Wickless Candle

by HatchetNoseGelphie



Category: Wicked - All Media Types
Genre: Beware, F/F, but idk i like it so far, mentions of abuse, this is kinda a fever dream fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 08:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20721158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HatchetNoseGelphie/pseuds/HatchetNoseGelphie
Summary: Inspired by, but not based off of, the story of Frankenstein, when Frexspar Thropp becomes motivated to create what he has known as the "lost child" that he and his wife never had. New to an unfamiliar world, and unfortunately green-skinned, Elphaba Thropp must now discover what her purpose is, and what foreign words such as "love", "affection", and "beauty" mean. Slowburn Gelphie.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting on AO3, and I'm taking this fic directly from my account on another site. I've been wanting an AO3 account for a long time, so I'm very excited at finally having one. I hope you all enjoy, and please leave a comment below!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Wicked, or Frankenstein, for that matter.

To say that the young, beautiful blossom that was Nessarose Thropp was concerned on behalf of her father would be quite the understatement. In truth, she was downright terrified for him. Ever since he had conceived that awful idea to create the lost child – the Unnamed God's child. At this point, Nessa was twelve years old. She was the most intelligent person in her class, but it didn't take a genius to know that sooner or later, Frexspar Thropp would work himself down to his grave.

Nessa was naïve enough, though, to only know very little about what had happened with her mother – why had she died? Why had she died birthing Shell? Why had Nessa's older sister died? Why hadn't she made it to birth?

Death was something that had begun to surround Nessa, ever since she was five and her mother died. Then, at age seven, her aunt died. Her closest friend died when she was nine. When she was eleven, she learned about her older sister, the one who never made it. That was also when her father conceived his idea and spent the next nine months until today working on it.

He nurtured this idea, spending hours upon hours every day caring for it. He rarely joined them for dinner; Nessa was stuck with just Nanny and Shell. Nanny looked after her – fed her, supported her lower back, and consoled her when she would get upset over her father.

Today, it was storming outside. Nessa was scared, but she wasn't quite sure why she was so scared. She sat in a room, perched on a chair with Nanny behind her, combing through her long, silky hair. She hated her sister, she realized.

With all the burning passion her armless body could muster, by the holy divinity of the Unnamed God, she hated her sister. Father had no reason to try to recreate her. To put her where she was not meant to be. It's for the Unnamed God, he said. He was reconciling a mistake. He was restoring the child that the Unnamed God didn't mean to take.

"Why does Father have to make her?" she said softly, more of a statement than a question. Nanny just continued playing with her hair and began humming lightly, a Quadling lullaby. Nessa hardly remembered Munchkinland; they'd been in Quadling Country for eight years, ever since she was four.

For some reason, this morning, Nessa had woken up with such an awful feeling. She couldn't quite ascertain why she felt so uneasy, but the storm was not making things any easier. With a jolt of anxiety, Nessa stood up.

Nanny frowned at her. "Come back, my pet. Nanny isn't done with your hair," she complained.

"I've got to go check on Father," was all she said.

It was difficult to walk without a support, but the stairs to the basement were near, and they had railings that she could lean against. She appreciated the support that her father had built into the house when they moved here. That was back when he actually cared for her and Shell; now… Well, he had completely missed her birthday two months ago. If that didn't say something about it, then she wasn't sure what did.

"Father?" she asked tentatively when she reached the bottom of the stairs. He was bent over his table, intricately working on applying some sort of chemical to the skin of his creation. He was grunting in pain, dollops of sweat rolling down his face and burns all across his hands from whatever chemical he was applying.

He didn't respond to her; he didn't even notice. She said it again, and then again. Carefully, wobbling a little but not enough to tip over, Nessa trekked across the stone floor. Her bare feet were cold against it, and she felt as if there was no life in this room aside from the small, flickering candle right beside the table, and even that wavered between life and death, as if it couldn't quite decide its own fate, and with that, the fate of the creation on the table.

Frex jumped a little when he felt her behind him. When he turned to look at her, there was a crazed look of excitement in his eyes. "Tonight is the night, my Nessarose," he said softly, gently reaching out a hand to stroke her cheek.

She was terrified. She had never seen him look like that before. Her heart was racing in her chest, and she felt hyperaware of the presence of the lifeless body on the table, composed out of death itself and woven together into some monstrosity that Nessa was so horrified to look at. She almost didn't look at it at all.

"Look at your sister, Nessa. Look at your older sister. You'll be meeting her soon," he prompted, his voice soft, tired.

And she did.

"Father… Why is she green? The Unnamed God gave you a green child?"

He frowned down at the corpse, and Nessa knew that she had lost a majority of the little attention she had of his. "She's… special," he smiled then, wide and loving. "This chemical I had to use to keep her skin flawless… It changed the color. But she's alright. She's going to be gorgeous, Nessarose. As shiningly emerald as the Wizard's palace. You'll see. I'll have my Elphaba, and she will be gorgeous. You'll all see…"

"Father…" Nessa cried softly, feeling tears prick at her eyes. This wasn't okay. This wasn't natural. What was he doing? Why was he going to bring it to life? There was no reason. Whatever ideas he had for it, whatever justification he had convinced himself of, it didn't make sense to her. The dead should stay dead, and that's that, not be brought back as some unnatural, horrific, _green_ monstrosity.

When looking at the corpse objectively, Nessa could concede that her father did a very good job at hiding the stitches where he connected the body parts, but the body was at least six feet tall, and was only aged to about fifteen. In dim lighting, it might pass for an actual human, but the moment that hideous verdigris was exposed to the eye, the beholder would realize just how disgusting the monster is.

Lightning struck, and Frexspar let out a small shout of adrenaline. His machine was hooked into the monster, needles prodding it everywhere. "It's time…" he whispered. And then he flipped the switch.

The machine was big, and bulky. It was man-made and, Nessa thought, the work of the devil. It rattled and clanged in an inhuman way, and the most revolting stench came from an exhaust pipe sticking out of the side of it. The machine shook the nightstand that had been pulled up beside the worktable, and with it, the small glass of water that Nanny had brought down earlier. If it weren't for Nanny, Nessa was certain her father's creation would have made him as dead as it. He certainly would not have taken care of himself.

Slowly, like a child coming into the light after having been locked in a dark closet during a playful game of hide-and-seek for fifteen minutes because she was so great at hiding, the creation's eyes opened, fearful as a baby bear encountering a full-grown possum that she had never seen before and curious as a fox kit exploring outside the den away from her mother's watchful gaze and innocent as a young lamb approaching a prowling lioness with friendly naïveté, unaware of the fate that awaited her if she did so.

"Elphaba…" Nessa whispered the name, that fated name that was assigned to her elder sister before she was even born, given a legacy that she didn't want and so chose to abandon rather than be born into such a name.

Her sister's eyes were unfocused but wide, and she took in a deep breath, shuddering it as it came out. Those eyes, though, were like chasms, dark and deep and filled with mysterious secrets that had somehow formed themselves within just one short moment of being alive.

Nessa felt tears begin to fall from her eyes, but in spite of herself, she did not hate this creature. She couldn't. She couldn't hate her sister. "Oh, Elphaba…"

"Monstrous."

Nessa turned to look at her father, and was both shocked and haunted at the absolute ire she saw in those shadowed eyes. "Father?" she asked tenderly, her voice no more than a murmur.

"It's monstrous. This thing is not the Unnamed God's child… This devil… This devil is not beautiful… I had meant her to be beautiful… Oh, by the Unnamed God!" he gagged then, hand coming to cover his mouth. He was trembling, eyes open wide with fear. "This thing is not beautiful! This revulsion! This demon! This absolute fiend!"

Elphaba didn't hear, or if she did, she didn't understand what they were saying. How could she? She was an infant, a newborn, just now experiencing the world for the first time. Slowly, she felt her fingers, pressing them down into the table. Her eyes moved about, and her mouth opened, but no sound was made.

With the unconfident strength of a toddler attempting its first steps, she pushed with her hands, beginning to raise herself up from the table.

"No!" Frexspar shouted then, his voice brimming with anger and terror. His hand snatched the cup of water from the nightstand and flung its contents at Elphaba. What could that do to stop her?

Nessa was prepared to tell him that that was useless, but then the water hit Elphaba's bare chest, and her skin began to sizzle in what sounded like a quite painful way.

She looked down at her own chest, eyes wide at the new sensation. Elphaba seemed as if she wasn't sure what to make of it. She lifted her hands, stopping to examine them for a moment and see, Nessa thought, what they were, what she was moving, and if they were hers. Then those green hands slapped themselves onto that plateau of a ridge on her, stretching from one side of her chest to the other, and she howled in agony.

With a jump at the scream, Frex spat on the creature and bolted out of the basement. "Father!" Nessa called, distressed, but he paid her no heed. She felt dizzy, unfocused. She almost didn't know what was happening anymore, who that person in front of her was.

Carefully, she sat down in the chair her father had just occupied. Elphaba was examining herself, discovering her body, and gently prodding at the marks on her chest.

"It's okay," Nessa said, drawing the girl's eyes. She managed a small smile through her tears. "It's going to be okay, you know what? It will be okay."

Elphaba met her gaze, and seemed almost quizzical for a second. She opened her mouth, and thought about something. "Et… Et wid beh oooka?" she tried. Her voice was hoarse, rough as a raw stone. Nessa thought she was trying to copy her mouth movements, and her smile widened in spite of herself.

"Yes… Yes, Elphaba. Et wid beh oooka," she laughed. Then, something occurred to her as Elphaba realized they had surroundings and slowly began to examine them, looking about herself and all around the little laboratory, even if she couldn't make sense of them as a newborn. "Nanny!" Nessa called. "Oh Nanny, I need your help!"

Elphaba looked at her again, eyes narrowed a bit. She attempted to say 'Nanny', but it sounded more like gibberish than her 'It will be okay'. Nessa laughed a little more, delighted at the life she saw in this being now. Catching on, Elphaba went, "Hah… Hah… Hah hah…" and just about smiled herself.

"Nanny, you must come see this!"

"Nanny's coming, you pet. Nanny's old. Her hips don't work like they used to," the old woman grumbled as she worked her way slowly down the stairs.

"What's going on, Nanny? Nessa? Did Father finally do it?" Shell asked, peeking his head out from the top of the stairs.

Nessa rolled her eyes at his incessant nosiness. "You go check on Father, Shell. Go find him."

After a minute, Nanny reached the bottom of the stairs. Elphaba looked at her with a mix between fascination and fear. Nanny hobbled closer to them. "My, my… Frex's got some awful lighting down here, don't he?"

"No, Nanny, she really is quite green."

"By Lurline!" Nanny gasped as she caught sight of the girl's painfully blistered chest. "What happened to you, you hideous child? Did he make you like that?"

"Water did that. He threw a cup of water at her. It burned her, I think."

"Burm…" Came Elphaba's tentative echo, probably trying to say 'burned'. She didn't seem to have full control of her tongue yet.

Nessa leaned back in the chair, giving Elphaba an encouraging smile. "She doesn't understand us. He had named her Elphaba, after Saint Aelphaba, I presume. He freaked out when she opened her eyes. He called her a monster, a fiend. But… When she opened her eyes, all I saw was my sister."

Gently, Nanny laid a hand on Elphaba's shoulder. The green girl jumped a little, looking down at the hand with curiosity. "Sisser…" she tried, again, to mimic the movements of Nessa's mouth. She grabbed Nanny's hand roughly. "Sisser. Sisser. Et wid beh oooka. Sisser burm?"

"Let's get you some clothing, dear," Nanny said, taking her hand and retrieving one of Frex's lab coats from a hanger on the wall and wrapping it carefully around a naked green body after removing the hooks from the machine.

Elphaba was intrigued by the sensation, and pulled at the clothing with interest. "Burm sisser et wid beh oooka burm burm sisser?" She met their eyes with a touch of anxiety.

Both Nessa and Nanny were confused for a moment, but then Nessa realized what Elphaba was trying to do and struggled to hold back her giggles. "She's trying to communicate. She's trying to join our conversation. She just doesn't know how."

At the new words, Elphaba took a little delight, grinning like a fascinated child. "Doh-ow. Doh-ow. Sisser doh-ow et wid beh oooka doh-ow. Burm doh-ow," she smiled at them proudly.

Nanny patted her shoulder. "There, there, dear. You must be starved. Let's go get you something to eat."

It was an endeavor, Nanny getting Elphaba to stand and ascend the stairs. Elphaba's first steps were shaky, a toddler trying to imitate her peers. But she gave it her best effort, and only fell once or twice. After Nanny got her up the stairs, she abandoned her briefly to help Nessa balance as she, too, climbed up into the living room.

Only… When they got back up there, there was no trace of Elphaba. "Sweet Lurline…" Nanny murmured in shock, looking around nervously. "Where could that little monster have gone?"

"Elphaba?" Nessa called out worriedly.

It was then that they heard a slight creaking, coming from down the hallway. Nanny rushed, with a hand on Nessa's back, propelling her forward, towards Frex's room, but it was too late.

Frexspar was despairing in his bed, head in his hands, murmuring prayers for forgiveness to the Unnamed God. Shell was on the bed beside him, trying to comfort him in the best way his seven year-old mind knew how, by talking. But Frex ignored him.

As the door creaked open and Elphaba peered curiously into the room, Frex noticed. He sprang into action, shouting curses and running at the innocent girl. She looked on in fear, not sure what was happening, until he grabbed a bookend and began to beat her with it.

Elphaba cried out in pain, raising her hands to try to block herself. Nessa and Nanny were both screaming at Frex, and Shell had broken out into tears (as had Nessa), but Frex was relentless. He cried out his anger at the poor girl, until Nanny left Nessa to push him off of her.

"Get out of here!" Frex screeched at Elphaba, throwing the bookend. It hit her hard in the shoulder, and she stumbled back, trembling from head-to-toe and eyes wide with panic. "Go!"

She probably didn't understand the word, but she understood enough. Elphaba stumbled away, running as fast as her clumsy legs would take her, climbing through an open window.

"Elphaba!" Nessa called worriedly, but the girl didn't even stop. Not for the first time, Nessa cursed her disability, her armlessness. If she only had balance, she could chase after her… But she didn't, and Shell was curled up on the bed, crying in fear, and Nanny was dragging Frex into the bath to force him into a cold shower, and there was nothing any of them could do.

**XXX**

She was running. She was running, and running, and she didn't even know what running was. All she knew was that she hurt all over, and that those beings had hurt her. She was gone, running and running and trying to escape what she didn't even know into something she didn't even know and she didn't even know she was escaping or what escape was only that she was running and she was running away from there away from the beings that hurt her because the beings that hurt her made her running and since she was running she hurt too because she didn't know her body and her unknown body didn't want to run and she felt heavy and uncomfortable and completely out of touch with her body as she ran and didn't even know it or what she was feeling only that she didn't like it and she wanted it all to be gone but she was gone and she was running and running and she didn't know what else she could do only that it all burm and she was running and

**XXX**

"Galinda, darling, I don't think you understand right now the importance of you getting married at a young age. Before you know it, your metabolism will go out the window, and you'll have sagging skin, and wrinkles. You're seventeen right now. You should have been married two years ago."

With a heavy sigh, Galinda closed her eyes. She was tired of her mother's lectures, and she was tired of being yelled at. "I'm looking, Momsie. I am."

Her mother crossed her arms over her chest in an unconvinced way. "Really? You're looking. Is that why you just broke up with Arnie? He could have made you a good husband, you know. He's going into medicine; do you know how much medicine pays? You'd get to be a happy, plump little housewife for him. But you have to marry when you're young."

Galinda scrunched her nose a little. Arnie had been…revolting, to say the least. He had a fat tongue and crooked teeth, breath like he had just eaten out of the garbage, and brown hair that was so greasy, it looked black. Aside from that, he was touchy – too touchy.

"I'm not going to defend myself, Momsie," Galinda shrugged as she touched up her mascara. "I'll be going to Shiz University next year. I will find someone there."

"You know, I don't really get why you want to go to university at all," her mother found a new avenue of ridicule. "Your father and I were married by the time we were fourteen, and I had you not two years later. You should have found someone by now. Housewives don't need to be educated."

Rolling her eyes, Galinda began to feel annoyed at her mother. "I'm going to Shiz University," she said with a sort of finality to her tone. "I will find a husband there, and I will be educated. There are things I wanna learn about, Momsie, like sorcery, and architecture."

Larena shook her head disapprovingly. "That's all a man's work. You don't understand. Oh, however did we end up raising you so horribly wrong?" she lamented with an air of drama to her tone.

Gritting her teeth for a second before remembering that it wasn't ladylike, Galinda tried to focus on her makeup rather than her mother's harsh words. "I really haven't the faintest idea," she responded lightly, deciding to give up on fighting her mother for now. "I will find a husband."

She would go to Shiz University, too. That much, Galinda promised herself.

**XXX**

Two years had passed since the incident where her sister had been recreated. The entire Thropp family had spent those two years trying their best to forget about her. Frex seemed to, the very next day after she was gone, revert back to how he was before he even realized his project. He was a warm father to Nessa and Shell once more, remembering birthdays and cooking on the odd day when he felt like giving Nanny a break. He helped them with their schoolwork and taught them Unionist lessons, but he had a much bigger stress now on the fact that the dead should remain dead. They had also moved back to Munchkinland shortly after.

That and the fact that he now avoided the statue of Saint Aelphaba in the lower quarters of Center Munch like the plague were the only indications that anything at all had happened on that night. Looking in from the outside, one could compare the Frex from three years ago to the Frex today and find no obvious change, just a slight shift in interests.

Nessa, however, was having quite the hard time forgetting. She didn't know how he could do it so easily. For her, the image of those warm, dark cocoa eyes were ingrained into her memory, endless chasms of mystery. It was as if those eyes alone held all of the answers to life.

Once, she had persuaded Frex to talk to her about that night. It was about a month afterwards, and he had been in a contemplative mood. Nessa had brought the subject up, and he had told her, curiously, that it was the eyes that showed him just how inhuman this creature was. He had stated that that was the last time he would ever talk about such a thing.

This dinner table was suddenly suffocating for Nessa. Nanny was trying to coax some more yams into her mouth, but she wasn't hungry anymore. Using her legs, she pushed her seat back and stood up. "I shall go take a walk. Nanny?"

"Nanny don't get to eat then. Nanny never get to eat," she grumbled, but stood and began accompanying Nessa out of the house. Nessa never did find out where her sister had gone, and if she had arms, she would go looking for her.

The two of them walked in silence for a long while, but Nessa wouldn't call it a stretch to say that the same thing was on both of their minds. Whenever Frex would show his subtle changes in behavior, Nanny and Nessa would share very worried, but knowing looks.

Nessa realized that that night had affected Nanny almost as, if not as much as, deeply as it had affected her. In that strange green creature, Nanny had seen a child, an innocent life that needed to be guided and aided, no matter how hideous she truly was. Nanny had seen a "she", not an "it", when she looked into those eyes, much as Nessa had.

It was infuriating, not knowing what had happened to the six-foot human girl. If she aged, she'd be either two years old, or around seventeen. For all they knew, Elphaba could have been pelted to death with rocks, or unknowingly stepped into a lake and burned herself alive, or even a fire and burned herself alive.

Nessa shuddered at the thoughts, and Nanny's steadying hand on her lower back became more prominent. She glanced up at the sky and realized that the sun was going down already. The walk had been short, but it had been enough to clear her mind. She was about to suggest to Nanny that they turn back. But just then, that very moment, a hesitant voice rang out behind them.

"I remember you. Vaguely…"

The both of them spun around in sudden fright at the rich, deep voice. Nessa stumbled, but Nanny steadied her out of instinct. They were both shocked to see a tall, gangly figure some ten feet behind them. She was dressed in a drab, shapeless dress that was too big for her, and her hands were clutching the sides of the skirt in anxiety.

"Elphaba…" Nessa said, tentatively. The lighting was so dim now, she couldn't be sure. "Elphaba, is that you?"

The newcomer took a hesitant step forward. "That's what he called me…in his journals. They were in the pocket of the coat. After I learned how to read, I read them, and it explained a lot. I've been trying to track him down for months."

But Nessa wasn't paying attention anymore. Tears were streaming down her face and she shook her head slowly. "Oh, Elphaba…" she sighed.

Nanny left her for the green girl, immediately going to wrap her in a hug. "There, there, dear. Nanny's got you now."

But Elphaba stepped back, arms going around herself protectively. "I don't like…touching," she admitted.

"Why'd you come?" Nessa asked, more out of concern than anything else. "You remember how he treated you last time he saw you, don't you?"

"Yes," something dark flickered across Elphaba's eyes. "I need to talk to Frexspar. I want to join society. I can't do that alone. I tried. I need his help." Both Nanny and Nessa exchanged a hesitant look, and Elphaba went on. "I can convince him. Trust me. I just… I need you to take me to him. He can hit me all he likes."

This Elphaba was far different from the child that had presented herself to them on that table, the one who struggled to copy Nessa's mouth movements, curiously entered Frexspar's room, and ran off on her own. She had matured, and she had matured quickly. In two years, she had learned conversation, and ideas. She'd learned how to read, how to speak. All on her own.

"We'll take care of you, dearie," Nanny promised, beckoning Elphaba to follow them. She then placed a hand on Nessa's lower back and began to guide her back to the house. Elphaba was silent as she followed behind them, not even scuffling her feet, and Nanny had to continually glance behind her to make sure the green girl was following.

The walk back to the house seemed infinitely longer than the walk from. Nessa thought that they couldn't possibly have walked this far in such a short amount of time, but then the house came into view, and she felt her heart speed up a little in concern for her sister. How would Frex react to seeing her again? Would he beat her, like he did before? Would he greet her as an old acquaintance? The former seemed much more likely.

The door groaned irritably at them as they opened it, as if it was trying to warn them not to enter, to heed its warning just this once and not venture into the spiteful home. As death-riding rebels, though, they entered, feeling altogether ready and anxious for the interaction that might await them.

At first, Frexspar didn't see them. He was engaged in a game of dominoes with Shell, hunched over a table as he struggled not to lose to a clever nine-year-old. "Welcome back, Nessa. Nanny. I hope your walk was refreshing," he said halfmindedly.

But then Shell looked up and caught sight of them, of Nessa standing nervously with her shoulders high and tense, of Nanny with her chin raised in defense and a hand on Nessa's back, and then Elphaba, who had stepped forward in front of the both of them with her long, crooked nose high in the air, affecting an air of defiance. She was the picture of a strong front aside from the slight shaking of her hands on her skirt.

"See, Father?" Shell shouted. "I told you she was real! I told you! It wasn't a dream!"

Father's fist clenched before he turned; Nessa suspected he had an idea about what it was Shell was referring to. And then he turned.

The moment his eyes, wrinkled at the corners from suspicion and absolute hatred and dark with the depth of the emotion there, caught sight of Elphaba, it was as if someone had lit a match to a spilled leak of a highly flammable chemical.

"Get that fiend out of here!" he screamed as he leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair haphazardly in the process. "Devil! Monster! Abomination!" He took a cup of water in his hands and flung its contents at the girl.

"No!" Nessa shouted, nearly falling over in her attempts to block the liquid. However, it seemed that Elphaba had been expecting this sort of reaction, and she skillfully ducked to avoid the contents of the cup. "Father, don't hurt her!"

Shell desperately dipped under the table and came out on their side, wasting no time in grabbing one of Frex's hands in an attempt to restrain him. Nanny took the other one, and while Frexspar fought them, trying to get to his fiend as he labelled her with every evil name he could think of, the two of them held strong.

"Really, I only seek an audience," Elphaba stated in annoyance, crossing her arms over her chest.

He scoffed in response. "And why should I grant an audience to you?"

This was good, Nessa thought. He had stopped his hissing and spitting, and now he stood there panting, but at least speaking to the girl as if she were a human being like him.

"Did I ask you to make me? To tear me from the ground and push me, afflicted, into an unforgiving world, and then abandon me while you sit on your golden throne and praise God? Life is precious, I've learned, and I shall protect it, but I did not ask for it. I did not ask for this skin, or this face, no more than you ask for this conversation or my presence here today at all. You've determined your own fate, and now you must suffer the consequences. I can be your ruin if you let me. In your mistake, you created me with an unnatural height, an unnatural speed, an unnatural strength. I don't believe you meant to, but you did. I was to be your perfect specimen. Your perfect child. I've read your journals, Frexspar Thropp; there's no reason to lie to me. I guarantee you, if a God did exist, then He would take shame in knowing how you say it all in His name, how you justified your own blind psychosis by calling me His child. And now you call me the child of the devil. How bitterly you turn against your own creation, and so quickly. Now, you will pay me what I am due as an unwilling creation. I have requests to make. I want you to hear me out, and then you can cast me aside, or you can reconcile the hate you showed your God, and you will grant my simple requests. Believe me when I say you won't have to lift more than a couple fingers to do so.

Several times throughout her speech, Frex opened his mouth to say something, or would begin to speak, but Elphaba didn't let him quiet her, and she persevered with what she had to say. By the end of it, Frexspar looked absolutely outraged, completely bewildered, and most certainly intimidated.

His mouth struggled to form coherent words for a few seconds. He was dumbfounded, not quite sure how to process all of the emotions that came with everything Elphaba had said to him.

"What are your demands?" he finally managed, his voice course and angry.

"Not demands," she said lightly. "I prefer to call them requests, Father."

That seemed to enrage him. "I am _not_ your father!" Nanny and Shell had to reinforce their grips on his arms to keep him from lashing.

But Elphaba just smiled knowingly. "Did you not create me? Perhaps my terminology is wrong. I shall call you Creator."

"What are your demands, beast?" he near enough snarled.

Her smile became more of a grin, cocky and omniscient. "I have only survived these past two years out of yearning to learn. That's all I've ever wanted. The first town I entered did not go over well. I was wearing nothing but your cloak, with my hair mangled from a week without being tended, and the people reacted awfully. They pelted me with stones, and I had to discover that I was different. That I could not join society because I was different. I lived behind a library, scuttling behind the trash cans and collecting scraps of paper that were thrown away. The symbols on them, I knew that they had to mean something. Slowly, I heard people reading things. I would sneak in at night, and I would memorize symbols. After a year spent like this, I could read somewhat fluently. That's when the crew for the library changed, and a strict night security guard established her place. She caught me in there one night, and she beat me with a flashlight. I had to learn, and I had to learn fast. But the people… They started to leave things in that library. I would still sneak in, but I knew when she worked, and I knew how to avoid her. I found clothing, abandoned in the center. Sometimes food – until then, I had eaten out of the dumpster of a nearby restaurant. An umbrella, I found once. It was only when I changed my clothing that I noticed your journals, and I read them, just two months prior to now. I traveled all the way from Quadling Country in search of you. I lifted a dark hoodie that could conceal my pigmentation at night, and I never stopped reading. I want to join society, Frexspar Thropp. Don't you see? I want to join society. I want to learn. To study." She sighed and let her arms drop to her sides. "I wish to go to university. Put me under your name. Call me a lost cousin. Give me an identity. You named me, didn't you? Elphaba. Elphaba Thropp. Claim me, and you won't have to worry about me at all. By next year, I will be in university. I will not come home for break. I will remain there until I graduate, and never will you see me again. This is my request. You gave me life, but you did not give me a life, and I want both. This is my request."


	2. Chapter 2

Eight months passed, and through those eight months, Elphaba learned far more about conversation and social interactions than she had learned from overhearing conversations in the library. Nessa and Nanny made it their personal goals to teach her how to deal with rude people, and how to stand her ground. Shell helped, too. He taught her slang, and the more intimate aspects of society. She was getting along rather well with all of them.

Except, of course, for Frexspar, who avoided her presence and often acted like she didn't even exist. He gave her a room in the attic, dusty and small with a single pillow up against the window. He filed her as a returned step-cousin, twice removed. A story was created about how she fled from Ev, having been turned green by the awful waste at the border. But that was the most Frex did to help her, and Elphaba was okay with that. She was able to enroll herself in Shiz University, and that's all that mattered.

Although Frex wouldn't directly pay a dime for her transportation or enrollment, Nanny had access to many of his accounts, and while he knew where the money was going when it would disappear, he never spoke a word about it.

At one point, Nessa had said to her, "The trick to get people to give you a chance is in the presentation. You said that, when you got pelted with rocks, you were wearing that lab coat, and you were unbathed and, I can imagine, rather unkempt. People saw you as more of a wild animal than a person, and their response was to attack."

Not long after Elphaba had arrived at the Thropp house, Nanny had grabbed some oil-based shampoos from the market to try on Elphaba. Oil, fortunately, did not burn her, and they were able to acquire skin oils as well, which would help her wash up.

"If you want others to look at you like a human," Nessa had said, "You need to present yourself as one. Act as if the only difference between you and those you meet at university is that you're a slightly different hue. Treat them like people, and treat yourself like a person, and their first instinct would be, well… You should hope for _stirring_ at best, because stirring means they won't be attacking you."

"Stirring," Elphaba repeated, considering the word. What Nessa said was making sense to her, but she wasn't really certain why stirring was the best she should hope for.

Now, as she packed a small bag with what little she had as far as clothing and oils, Elphaba convinced herself that she could achieve stirring. Of course, at Shiz University, she would have to be put in one of the big dorms with about fifteen others, as she did not have an Ama, and her research showed that those without Amas went into those massive dorms. Hopefully, those girls in the dorms would see her and only feel stirring rather than rage.

Quite the surprise would be awaiting her, then, when she arrived at Shiz University a week later and stood in the back of the meeting room, where all the Amas were meeting and deciding that their precious dolls shall room together.

Elphaba found the whole thing to be quite pretentious, and the moment she had arrived, disgusted eyes had been glaring at her, silently telling her that she had no place among them, but the silver lining was lying in the fact that they didn't attack her. It caused a minor feeling of elation, somewhere deep within her, that she could at least pass as a human in front of everyone here. Also, she was grateful for the chaos and commotion around them, since she suspected that was part of the reason why no one made a scene about her.

"Shall I invite…" came a regal-sounding accented voice. "the Thropp Third Descending, of Nest Hardings, Elphaba?"

Elphaba froze. What was that title? What had that meant? It made no sense to her. Of course, Nessa had told her about the Eminency, but Elphaba had never considered herself to be in line for it. Certainly, Frex would not have placed her under that title. Perhaps Nanny…

"Elphaba?"

Being jerked into action, Elphaba felt like a walking stick as she rigidly approached a fishlike woman with baubles and hoops creating her person. Beside her, a beautiful blonde girl stood, looking frantic and explaining something to the older woman. That is, until her blue eyes set on the approaching beanstalk, and then she went pale.

Horror. Disgust. Unadulterated loathing. All of this played on that pretty little face, and more, in the span of just a second when those eyes laid on the green target. Elphaba wasn't sure whether to laugh or not, but she wanted to. She heard Nessa's voice in the back of her head.

"Don't…don't do that," Nessa had cringed after her sister had laughed. "You cackle. You don't laugh. Don't do it. Just… Try to avoid laughing, alright? At least until you establish your place. We don't want people to attack you because your laughter is so terrifying."

And so, Elphaba restrained herself. Her mouth remained a thin line as she approached the two with as much dignity as she could muster.

"A distant cousin of the Thropp family line, closer in kin to the great Peerless Thropp, having arrived in Munchkinland just one year prior after an escape from Ev," the woman read aloud, irking Elphaba just a tad. "How fascinating for us all, Miss Elphaba. We shall look forward to hearing tales of exotic climes and times. Miss Galinda and Miss Elphaba, here are your keys. You may take room twenty-two on the second floor."

The moment they were dismissed, one of the keys was snatched away by Miss Galinda and the girl sped off in a fit. Elphaba, on the other hand, simply took the other key, fixed her gaze on the ground, and headed off in the same direction after grabbing her two small luggage bags (as she had deigned to take two to fit her books).

The dormitories were not hard to navigate, but Elphaba almost got lost at least three times, as she kept getting stuck in her reveries about this place. She could hardly believe that she was in Shiz University now, with a room key in her hand, preparing to start classes in just a couple days. The people in the meeting room hadn't exactly treated her with respect, but they didn't cause her any harm, either. _Stirring_.

Shiz University was everything that Elphaba had hoped it to be, and more. Over the two years in which she learned, slowly and surely, how to live, it became clear to her rather early on that knowledge was far more important than any God in whose name she may or may not have been created. If she were to gain knowledge, she would have more power than her Creator. She could never be like him, her God. So she had to contend with being more powerful than him, with having something that he didn't have. Knowledge.

When she did finally arrive at room twenty-two, she was not surprised to find that her blonde roommate had already arrived. Elphaba swung open the door and brought her two bags inside.

One of the beds had already been claimed by pink fluff-lined bags – the one closer to the window. That was perfectly fine, Elphaba thought, perfectly fine by her.

"I've claimed my side of the room, and you may do whatever you wish with yours," came Miss Galinda's overwhelmingly confident voice. "Just keep your awful fingers away from my possessions, and do not speak to me, and we will have no problems."

Elphaba was suddenly very amused by that, but she contained her mirth to a single smirk, recalling Nessa's warning about her laughter. Must not provoke the spitting little blonde to an act of violence.

"Although I do not see the problem with my fingers which are so-called 'awful'," Elphaba began bravely, ignoring the piercing gaze that set itself upon her, "I guarantee you that your possessions are far too, well, pink for my hands to touch anyway."

"My possessions are valuable, and expensive! Your awful fingers are, well, _green_!"

And so, the needle is found in the haystack. Of course, it was Elphaba's discoloration that caused the stigma against her. She should have known. Wordlessly, she began to unpack her two bags, hanging three out of the four drab dresses she owned (for the fourth was on her) in the closet and placing a good stack of twelve or so books in the shelf provided for her.

Her books were her prized possessions – the only things she really called her own. She had collected them slowly. Her first book was one she had stolen from the library on accident, after almost being caught by the night guardwoman and running out of the library without dropping the book. Her second was a torn one that she had found in a dumpster. Her third, she had found in an alley. Those were the three she owned when she came to live with the Thropps. Any books thereafter were gifts, mostly from Nanny with the occasional one from Nessa.

After the books were set up on their shelf, Elphaba ventured into the bathroom to set her three oils – one for her skin, one for shampoo, and one for burns – in the medicine cabinet. By the time she was done with all of her unpacking, Galinda was still in the middle of hers, pulling frilly dress after frilly dress out of her many oversized bags.

By Oz, Elphaba couldn't understand why one tiny person needed so much clothing – or shoes, for that matter, she thought as she gazed upon the blonde's rather stuffed shoe rack. The blonde was lucky the overfilled rack was not leaning forward like Elphaba thought it ought to do.

Classes began in two days, and the green girl was looking forward to them, to say the least. She was ready to study from professionals, from people who had all of the knowledge she sought. These people, to her, were idols. They were the ones who were going to teach her what society was like – not her fellow classmates. Society didn't matter, Nessa had said at one point.

"Society doesn't matter. Society won't see you; they'll see your skin. What matters is what's inside," were her exact words. Elphaba wouldn't lie and say she completely understood the sentiment, but she accepted it, and she trusted Nessa.

She remembered very, very little from the day she had first come to life, but she did remember Nessa's gentle smile, Nanny's sweet voice. The two went hand in hand, she thought. They were the first people to treat her like something other than an abomination. That sort of bond, you never truly forgot. That was something that ran deeper than skin, or blood. Elphaba wouldn't pretend to understand it, but it was there.

The next day, however, was excruciating for one particular green girl. She mostly stayed in her bed and studied the textbooks she'd need for class. She was amazed at the bed itself. It wasn't anything special, but it was a whole lot better than sleeping on the floor of the attic with nothing but a singular pillow, or being curled up against a dumpster in some alleyway. These things had become the normal for her; getting treated like she was nothing was just expected. This courtesy that the Shiz staff provided, then, did not go unnoticed by her.

Miss Galinda had been out of the room for the majority of the day, and when she was inside, she fiddled with her makeup or sketched on an artpad, but made no sound. That was all fine by Elphaba. If the pretty blonde girl thought she was so much better than her, then so be it. Who was she to argue?

But yes, the day had been painfully slow, waiting in anticipation for her first class tomorrow, her first chance at being part of society's learning, of being an actual _someone_ rather than a fiend, a monster, a green freak. A beanstalk, a grasshopper, a cabbage. Names had already been flying around the campus, but Elphaba did her best to ignore them, like Nessa had said.

**XXX**

Unhappy about her roommate and unwilling to spend any more time with the girl than absolutely necessary, Galinda had taken it upon herself to head out to the buttery early in the morning and try to make friends. She had come to Shiz to rise up in the social hierarchies, to be more than her parents were. Granted, they were wealthy, but she didn't want wealthy. She wanted _loaded_, and she didn't want to have to lift a finger to do so.

On the other hand, she was hoping she'd maybe pick up a few things about architecture at this university. Who knew?

During her morning at the buttery, Galinda had met the Misses Pfannee of Pfann Hall, Shenshen of the Minkos, and Milla of Center Munch. They were gloriously oversmug girls with a knack for foul nicknames and a gossipy nature that left a bad taste in the mouth. Galinda loved them.

Of course, their personalities were far from desirable. Galinda would much prefer to talk to more civilized beings, but these girls, she knew, these girls were going to be her ticket. Maybe… Maybe she'd visit one of their houses' over winter break, and maybe she'd meet an inherently loaded uncle with a handsome face to boot, and maybe, just maybe, she might win him over, and be married right off the bat, free to study architecture at Shiz without having to worry about money or her mother's criticisms or dealing with, really, anything. It would also be nice, she thought, if he wasn't too clingy or forward.

Upon the return to her room late in the evening, Galinda found Miss Elphaba in exactly the same position she had left her: hunched over a book with her bony knees drawn to her chest, reading. The book was being held rather close to her face with one hand while the other idly curled itself in her hair. Carefully, beautifully, like a ballerina twirling and performing pirouettes and majestic leaps, that hideous finger, so impossibly thin and bony, like the exoskeleton of a beetle's leg, wrapped itself in that hair, and then let the hair spring free. Not once did the hair keep the curl. Miss Elphaba's hair formed a curtain around her face, so Galinda just saw the long, hatchet green nose peeking out into the fold of the book she was so enamored by. That hair, however, had an almost shiny quality to it. Were she not talking about Miss Elphaba here, Galinda might've even called it gorgeous. But this was Miss Elphaba, and if anything, Miss Elphaba was far from gorgeous. Even more accurate, she was the antithesis of beauty. And yet, Galinda found herself drawn in so unusually by that shimmering dark hair, resembling coffee spun into threads – black silk, fine and refined – night rain, invisible to the eye in its mysterious power. It was so enchanting, perhaps most of all because of the contrast of that hair and the hideous face it crowned.

Galinda did not say a word to Miss Elphaba that night – would not. Why did the green girl deserve her attention?

And yet, as she settled down in her bed, clothed in her velvet lavender pajamas after washing up in the restroom, readying herself to let her creative juices flow with a sketchpad on her lap and a pencil in her hand, Galinda found her eyes being drawn back to that waterfall of dark hair, spun across one impossibly bony shoulder and falling in waves down her spiny back. Such a contrast, she thought.

With her pencil, she began to draw, constructing, beam by beam, a house. A nice house, with a wide, overhanging roof and pillars. A home that someone could proudly call home. It was three stories tall, with diagonal siding on the top half that faded into a soft pink base for the first floor, a style that had only become popular in modern Wittican culture. She drew a fence surrounding it, with crossing iron bars that each ended in a three-sided arrow, sharpened at the end. The gate was smaller, more conservative. It was made of steel rather than iron, and decorated with steel designs of vines and flowers.

The entirety of her life, Galinda had so despised her mother's values. Part of her had always kind of wanted to learn, but it was her mother that taught her instead to spend hours on her appearance every day, who loaded her with money and set her in a fashion outlet, who followed her around, making sure the clothes she selected were beautiful and uncomfortable. This wasn't who Galinda wanted to be, but it was who her mother made her be. As a byproduct of years of grilling, she had come to scrutinize clothing and faces and makeup and awful green pigmentations as second nature, because that's all she ever knew around her mother. It was natural to want to gossip about who did what and who did who, because that's what her mother did around her. It was a sort of manipulation, Galinda knew, but she did see part of the value to it. When she married a loaded man, she could be free to study whatever she wanted. She wouldn't have to lift a finger. That was why she did it – why she still spent hours on her appearance, thousands on her clothing, and her sanity with the Misses Pfannee, Shenshen, and Milla. For her future. For that shining moment where a man would take care of all of her worries.

For now, at least, that's what she knew she wanted. Her mother's values, however manipulative, did serve a purpose, and they would get her to that twinkling endpoint. Galinda saw no reason to change now, not when what she did was all for her future.

**XXX**

The first day of classes approached faster than Galinda would have liked but much slower than Elphaba preferred. In the morning, both were awake and out of bed a full three hours before classes started – Galinda because she needed to do her makeup perfectly and pick a flawless first-day-of-classes outfit, and Elphaba because she simply couldn't sleep in the anticipation for the lectures.

Elphaba gathered a simple navy blue frock in her arms and headed towards the bathroom. She passed by Miss Galinda, but didn't spare a word for the arrogant blonde. Inside the bathroom, she stripped down, briefly pausing to examine herself in the mirror.

Really, she wasn't pretty. Even aside from her unnatural skin, her face was pointed and sharp. Her ribs were prominent, and lined with scars from where skin was pulled over them and sewn together. She was bone-thin, and she looked almost like a skeleton with a blanket tucked snugly into it. There was also that slight discoloration on her chest from that first day she was alive – she didn't remember a whole lot from that day, nor the incident itself, only that it involved water. And then scars from where she had been beaten with a bookend (another thing she did not remember), pelted with rocks (she had some recollection), beaten with a flashlight. Burn scars on the back of her hands from when she had stepped out from the library when it was raining and held her hands out from under the overhang to see what the sparkle in the air was. Her eyes were dark, and expressionless, and her nose was awful and sharp.

For a moment, Elphaba was horrified by herself. Was this truly how she looked? It had to be. The only thing she saw that she admired was the slight rise and fall of her chest – her own breathing, shown to the world, declaring proudly that _I'm here. I'm alive._

Snapping out of her reverie, she retrieved her cleaning oils from the medicine cabinet and meticulously applied a light coating to her skin, and then rubbed some of the shampoo into her hair. Once she was finished, she dressed in her shapeless dress and headed back out into the bedroom.

Miss Galinda shot her an odd look when she emerged. Elphaba quirked one eyebrow up daringly, but the blonde just gave her head a little shake and returned her gaze to her vanity, which she stared into as she applied some powder or another to her face.

Having nothing else to do, Elphaba perched on her bed and held one of her textbooks for the classes she hadn't even started yet, and began to hungrily review the pages of it. The text was blurry, so she had to hold it closer to her face. Perhaps that was something everyone had to do, she thought. Many people just hid it because it was an embarrassing sight.

_Nothing to embarrass me_, she thought, _for I already am an embarrassment._ She wanted to cackle then, but in recalling Nessa's words, she forced herself to hold it back. Certainly, Miss Galinda would really not want to hear that.

Speaking of the frilly blonde roommate, she stood from her vanity and headed into the bathroom, emerging a full ten minutes later in an elaborately simply pink and yellow dress, with a pink headband within her hair. With twenty minutes left to kill, she sat delicately on her bed and once again began to scratch graphite in her little artpad.

Elphaba wondered, briefly, fleetingly, what it is that the girl was drawing. What subject could be so fascinating? One time, Elphaba herself had tried to draw, with some paper she found in the house and one of Nanny's pens, but she found herself to be not so adept at it, and her bird was misshapen and poor.

"Miss Elphaba, are you going to continue to stare at me, or actually say something?"

The green girl was unphased by being caught and called out, and she simply quirked one eyebrow right back up and stared levelly into those blue eyes. "A similar way, I'm sure, to the way that you observed me last night. If you didn't speak then, why need I speak now? Is there a double-standard I'm unaware of? Please, enlighten me, Miss Galinda."

The blonde, on the other hand, was completely flustered once she learned that her observations last night had not gone unnoticed. She stood, pressing her artpad and pencil into the bed firmly. Her face was a deep rose color, and she floundered for a few moments, mouth trying to form adequate words as she pointed a finger angrily at her roommate. "You – Well – You – "

"Yes? Words would be nice."

"You are incorrigible!" Miss Galinda suddenly spat, steaming from her ears.

"Oh, that's a five-dollar word," Elphaba cackled – she couldn't help it this time. Galinda's face became horrified at the noise, but if possible, more snotty, too. "And here I was thinking you were just an airhead who couldn't accurately give me a definition for _chthonian_. Clearly, I must be mistaken. My apologies, dear roomie," she smiled in a sickly sweet manner.

Miss Galinda huffed, obviously deciding not to grace her with a response. She slung her over-the-shoulder bag onto her arm, stuffed a couple books and lipsticks into it, as well as her artpad and pencil, slipped her feet into two-inch heels, and stomped out of the room with her usual air of superiority causing much more of a ruckus than was normal.

Elphaba waited until she had left before she burst out into full-blown laughter, clutching her sides and wiping at her eyes to keep from crying out of the mirth she felt. Really, Miss Galinda was something else!

Once she had recovered, Elphaba chuckled and packed her own bag and left the room, as well, not even bothering to lock it. After all, the only thing she valued in there were her books, and she was certain no one would want to steal those. Miss Galinda's makeup and outfits, though… Those looked expensive, very expensive. It was such a shame, then, that the blonde was so nasty. If she had been a bit nicer, then perhaps Elphaba would have remembered to show some concern for her stuff. Alas, that was not the case.

Her first class was a couple buildings down from Crage Hall – a history class with one Professor Terristry. Upon arrival, Elphaba casually ignored the looks and glares sent her way, and took her seat in the front of the class, recalling Nessa's lessons to act as if she belonged in society. That was the way to get people to not attack her.

And so, Elphaba did, wasting no time on worrying what others thought of her, or those whispers behind her that she was certain were about her, and instead pulled out her history textbook and a notepad and a pen, readying the third thing in her hand above the second and looking up to the wise teacher eagerly.

The class passed quickly, and with it, the rest of her classes. The highlight of her day had, in fact, been, when she stepped into her biology class with Doctor Dillamond – an Animal! Who would have thought? – and saw her familiar blonde roommate. The look on the girl's face was priceless. As it turned out, the two of them shared a total of three classes together.

Looking back on it, Elphaba wasn't sure quite what she was expecting from her classes. They were perhaps, a lot more mundane than she was hoping for, and in them, she learned the basics of each subject, which she had already taught to herself from her textbooks. It was slightly disappointing, then, but the thrill of university did not leave her.

Her favorite class thus far was definitely biology. Not only was Doctor Dillamond absolutely astounding in the breadth of his knowledge, hands down one of the most intelligent professors in the university, but also, the subject matter itself was fascinating. Elphaba wondered if all of this knowledge was what Frexspar had used in creating her. His journals had been a mess, and she had come to accept that his creating her was something of a miracle considering how little he knew about this subject – he just got lucky. But this biology, these things she was learning about the cell, she still had those. She had stayed after class to examine a swab from the inside of her cheek under a microscope, much to Doctor Dillamond's delightful confusion, and confirmed that she did, indeed, have both cells and DNA within those cells.

_This is what I have_, she realized. These cells, this DNA, proved that she was alive, that she was a creature, that she was human. The entirety of the subject of biology, learning it, had become almost cathartic for her – it calmed her down, reassured her, and taught her.

After her classes were over, Elphaba had decided to clear her head a little bit by taking a walk around the Shiz University grounds. The grass was thick and gorgeous, and then trees hung low over the heads of the students. The grounds themselves were huge, the campus much bigger than Elphaba had been expecting. She was amazed by it all. She felt like a child, taking in the world, the way she had taken it in three years ago, when she had stopped running, haven forgotten why she had been running in the first place, and looked up to see a low weeping willow tree, its leaves mourning over a small swampy pond in the wet marshland of Quadling Country. Her feet had been so severely burnt, she didn't even feel them anymore, but she saw that weeping willow, and all she felt was bliss.

As she walked these pathways of Shiz University, Elphaba could almost forget about all of the people casting her disgusted glances, whispering about her behind her back, not quietly enough for her to not know it was about her, but too quietly for her to know exactly what they were saying.

No, nature was plenty enough to distract her from the harsh cruelty of the human race. She enjoyed the campus, in all of its entirety, but paid little attention to the buildings right now. All she cared about was the nature. She envied it – its ability to simply exist, without question, without care. The ability of others to merely exist in a similar manner. It was only the unnatural that would envy the natural.

A deafening crack filled the air, and Elphaba glanced up worriedly. Without her having even noticed, the clouds had grown dark and heavy with rain. Feeling a brief moment of panic, she sped towards the nearest building, closing herself within the doors just before the first spurt of liquid death tore itself from the clouds.

She felt lucky that the warning thunder had sounded, some part of nature almost accepting her, cautioning her that another one of her peculiarities was about to be exploited if she didn't hurry into cover. Grateful, she turned to examine which building she had wandered into.

Only to have her heart begin to flutter in her chest at the sight.

_There were ranks upon ranks of shelves, lined up like soldiers readying themselves for battle, bearing their battle scars and their weapons in the form of hundreds upon thousands of books between them all, readied for the war upon Ignorance and Illiteracy. These soldiers were prepared to defend their knowledge and their home, the world they carried within, and all of those who had the yearning to reach out and access this knowledge, but not damage it, for those with the yearning felt no violence – just hope. She had tried, so hard, just to find a place. She had been cast out of whatever hole she had crawled from, and then hurt by those awful people in that town, those red-skinned and white-skinned devils, and all she wanted now was a home. As she stared upon these soldiers, mighty and unrelenting, she couldn't help but feel that she might have found one, at long last._

A heavy shudder ran through Elphaba, like vibrations down her spine as she saw now, a new army, a new force of knowledge, ready to open itself up to her and envelop her in its musty, wonderfully musty, arms. It seemed almost stupid, in retrospect, to not have expected there to be other libraries in the world, but she recalled seeing that painted plain sign – _Quov's Ozian Books_ – and hadn't ever considered that maybe she'd have another home, maybe there'd been a place just like it.

_Shiz Library_.

The words were along the inside of the building, on a quarter-wall overhang above the front desk, which was occupied only by a dozing woman in purple, ruling effortlessly over her kingdom and commanding her army without lifting a single finger.

A new home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading chapter 2 of A Wickless Candle! I hope you all enjoyed! Please leave a comment if you did :)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of A Wickless Candle! Please leave a comment below to let me know how I'm doing and/or what you thought!
> 
> I currently have seven chapters written and posted on the other platform, and I will be working through double checking them for any errors and posting them here, as well. I hope to see you all next chapter!


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